Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Whenever there’s a discussion about the history of celebrity
chef pop culture, one name is invariably left out, and this Swedish Meatballs
recipe served as a reminder of that sad fact. How anyone can talk about the
pioneers of food television without including the Swedish Chef from the Muppets
is beyond me.

His frenetic energy and charisma makes Gordon Ramsey seem
like a shrinking violet by comparison. His technique surpasses Emeril's on
every level, and if we’re just talking catch phrases, how can you even begin to
compare “Yummo” to “Bork, Bork, Bork?”

Some use the excuse that he wasn’t actually real, that he
was just a bunch of stained, smelly fabric, wrapped around some dude’s hairy
forearm. Well, that may be true, but it goes beyond that. I believe there’s
been a systematic discrimination against Swedish chefs, which has made
advancing upward impossible. I call it the ice ceiling.

Do NOT forget the Lingonberry jam!

Anyway, in related news, these Swedish meatballs rocked!
Unlike most of the recipes I post here, I’ve had little experience with the
recipe, but was very happy with the results, except for one major issue, which
I mention in the video. I broke the cardinal rule of meatball making, and used
lean meat.

Not paying attention, I picked up a package of ground pork
that turned out to be 95% lean. The horror. I might as well have used tofu.
Nonetheless, I loved the flavor, butimplore you to use regular ground beef,
and ground pork with a 75/25 lean-to-fat ratio. Do that, and you’ll be enjoying
a plate of meatballs even the world's most under appreciated celebrity chef
would love. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 large portions:

For the meatballs:

2 tbsp butter

1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

1/3 cup plain bread crumbs

3/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

pinch of cayenne

1 pound ground chuck

1 pound ground pork

*Note: you can always cook a little piece to taste for salt,
and adjust from there.

Greetings from sweden! Bork, borkbork. Well done, not how a swede would have made them but most definatly doesnt suffer from a chef-john-ification. Looks delish, and you are spot on with the lingonberrys. This is not uncommonly served with mashed potatoes also. Thanks for being excellent!

I love you for posting this! Thanks, Chef John! I'm about 2 hours away from the nearest Swedish put-it-together-yourself-and-have-parts-left-over store, and I'm of the opinion that homemade is always better anyway. I'm off to Blood Farm (honest to goodness, that's the name of our local slaughterhouse) for some fresh meat so I can make these ASAP!

Nice Video again!some tips from a swede -I use otemeal instead of breadcrumbs as i experiance better body and more moist, i also use raw finly greated onion for more taste. the sauce is made from the left overs in the PAN with a lot of heavy cream, worth the mess every day :), also try "pressgurka" to go with it, google-it :) for christmas, we always make small size, half your sice meat balls and put some Xmas spices like allspice (sometimes also anchovis), to make them perfectly round we freeze them for some minuts to firm up :)

My favorite Swedish chef bit from the Muppet Show is where he's attempting to cook a lobster. It gets rescued by a mob of pistol-waving lobsters wearing sombreros and ammo belts, who shoot up the kitchen while screaming in Spanish. Complete, beautiful chaos.

While mashed potatoes are traditional with Swedish meatballs, I like to serve them with buttered egg noodles. Never cared for the lingonberries.

Ah...pot luck at work next week and I was racking my brain to figure out a main course dish to bring... whaaaalaaaa! Noodles will be hard to make and bring in, so I'm thinking rice...made the right way, pan roasted first and then steamed. Thanks much for making this step by step easy. Now multiplying the recipe by 10!

Looking at your video I can only wonder WHY didn't I oven bake the 8 pound batch of Swedish meatballs that I made for last years office party?!? They were all hand rolled too...and it DID make a huge mess! Never again... I'll do better with a future batch of turkey meatballs for my brown bag lunches: thanks Chef John!

This was the fourth foodwishes recipe I decided to try. I had some ground berkshire pork left over from my summer food share program, and decided to give it a go with some ground chuck, as suggested.

This was the first time I had made a roux in a pan (usually I'm making them for a sauce in a sauce pot) so I was initially concerned I could get a good enough "mix", but your "start slow" method for adding the beef broth worked perfectly.

The result? Equisite. Tender, soft, delicious meatballs, which I served alongside some pirogues (no sour cream needed, the sauce was excellent on both!)

I'm making this tonight for my wife who has Italian and Swedish roots, but she normally dyes that out. After I had decided to make this, I told her and then she told me it was her little Grandma's specialty which means I have alot to live up to. No worries here though, I told her I have Chef John with me, LOL. Serving it over some egg noodles with the local "green cauliflower".

Chef JohnI love your recipes- I tried both your pea and ham and potato soup- both have a real 'wow' factor. I am so impressed and dont be discouraged by the 'most underappreciated' statement that is just not true! Thank you, thank you and keep cookin'- cant wait to try this swedish meatball recipe!

Hi Chef John,Love this recipe and the video. Going to make it at my parents' house tomorrow as they are requesting it. I did a sort of kooky version of your recipe using eggnog in the meatballs and sauce. It was good :)

I did these with a couple subs - sorry... But they were AMAZING! Ridiculously GOOD. I did not heavy cream - I know it makes no sense but I used milk and a couple of tbsp s of sour cream. And I use home made broths, so all I had was chicken, sorry (I hate altering recipes, but I hope you are ok with that, LOL).... Anyway, too good, and so easy comfort food - my daughter loved these and so did the rest of the fam! Thank you; you always inspire!

I have made this recipe 3 or 4 times and everyone in my family LOVES it...NOT an easy feat to please all of my kids. I serve it with bowtie pasta as my kids don't like potatoes. Thanks for the amazing recipe!

I'm finally making this recipe today. Glad to see chicken stock will work okay because that is what I have. I'm stuck with ground dark meat turkey instead of pork so I think I will add some lard to the mix. I'm glad to see comments from folks (especially the Swedes!) that this is a good recipe. I trust CJ a lot but still glad to see normal folks finding the recipe works.

Regarding the holey wooden spoon, I have one of those things as well, it having come in a set. I had no idea either what that was for and it has largely lived in my drawer, neglected. CJ, your comment about how folks are always asking spurred me to hit the modern oracle, google, and check it out. So, turns out that hole is for specifically stirring risottos to get them to blend properly and also good for stirring batters. But it can also be used, as it is here, for a pokey stir-ey thing to make a sauce.

Chef John, What do you think of bypassing the hassle of forming the meat mixture into balls and just forming the whole mixture into a meatloaf and cooking it as in your 'meatloaf w/mushroom gravy' recipe? It seems that this would streamline the prep time while giving one the same flavor. Am I off base?

Chef John...what is the holy spatula story??? Found you on the all recipes website. Love, love your recipes and thank you for videos. Having fun learning to cook your recipes and my husband having fun eating your recipes. lol Thank you again. HaPpY NeW YeAr!!!!!!